Once confidence had been established, my first request to Novikov was to be put in touch with Rado since, as he had left Switzerland for Paris some weeks before, I felt quite sure he had arrived and made his number by that time. Novikov assured me, however, that he had not yet shown up. He then agreed to send off a cable to Moscow about me, giving my cover names and also the cover names of other members of the organisation such as Albert (Rado), Cissie, Pakbo, Lucy, etc., and ask for the control questions so that they could be put to me. He also agreed to send off the voluminous information that I had brought with me from Pakbo and Lucy.
This information was in French and German and Novikov explained that his cipher was designed only for messages in Russian. He therefore asked me to stay on legation premises and help with the translation. This took a day and a night, with me translating the material into English and Novikov's adjutant retranslating it into Russian. As a result, I had not finished this task till the morning of November 11, and I was then told that a reply to their telegram about me to the Centre could not be expected for about six days. They kindly offered me the hospitality of the legation in the meanwhile, but I refused as this would have meant being cooped up in a room all the time till the answer was received. I preferred to go to a hotel outside and take a chance that the fact that my papers were not in order would not be spotted. I therefore arranged a rendezvous with Novikov's adjutant for a week ahead, under cover of darkness, at the corner of the Rue de Prony.
I had some difficulty in finding a hotel, as all the big ones had been taken over by the Allies and most of the small ones were unwilling to let rooms for a period as they could make more money letting their rooms by the hour to soldiers and their companions, the usual establishments having all been closed by the police after the liberation on the grounds of collaboration. After a couple of failures I found a room with the aid of a couple of packets of cigarettes as a douceur. Accommodation was always a difficulty since, having neither an entry visa for France nor a permis de sejour for Paris, my papers, to say the least, were not in order and I would be liable to arrest if I were picked up in a police raid or reported by a zealous hotel manager. As a result I moved my hotel every few days until in the end I found an obliging hotelier who, realising that I was phony, blandly increased his charges tenfold in recognition of the fact that I remained there unmolested till I left the city.
I had chosen the right day to see Paris, as Churchill and Eden were with General de Gaulle at the Armistice Day celebrations. The enthusiasm of the French on seeing Churchill was tremendous and it was a memorable occasion for me also, since it was the first time I had seen the great war leader who, when I left England, was still in political outer darkness.
The adjutant kept the rendezvous a week later and told me that Novikov had received a reply from the Centre but that I was to come again the next evening as all the telegrams for me from the Centre had not yet been deciphered. Accordingly I presented myself at the rendezvous again the next night and after the control questions had been put and correctly answered the atmosphere mellowed considerably and we all settled down to an enormous dinner liberally washed down with vodka and wine.
The Centre had sent a whole series of questions for me to answer, most of them pertinent and most of them not unnaturally concerning the fate of the organisation. One or two, however, were rather odd; for example: "Were agents of the Abwehr present when you were interrogated by the Swiss police?" I assume that they thought my arrest had been entirely the result of Abwehr tip-offs and that there was a much closer liaison between the Bupo and the Abwehr than in fact was the case; unless, of course, it was a trick question of such subtlety that I failed to see the point. The director was also very much concerned over the fate of Rado and asked Novikov to find out discreedy whether he had not perhaps been arrested by the French police.
In my first message to the Centre I had pointed out that the network in Switzerland was completely intact and that all it needed was a means of communication and funds; it could then continue exactly as before. I had suggested that a new transmitter be installed either in Geneva or just over the frontier in French Communist- controlled Annemasse, with the local French and Swiss Communist parties running a system of couriers from the main cut-outs in Switzerland. The director preferred the second plan and I was instructed to work out a detailed organisation for this.
After the banquet was over and the messages had been discussed, I was told to make regular calls on the Military Mission every two or three days under cover of darkness. The Mission in the meanwhile had moved to the former Esthonian Legation in the Rue du General Appert, where they had installed a short-wave transmitter which speeded communications somewhat. At one of the visits I was ordered to go ahead with the plan for setting up the headquarters of the Swiss network in Annemasse and also informed that shortly a false Dutch passport and a new cipher would be sent me by courier.
Soon afterwards I was told that all plans had changed and that I was first of all to go to Moscow for discussions. I would be flown there on the return journey of the plane which was to bring Maurice Thorez back to France. The plane arrived towards the end of November and was due to return after a couple of days. It did not do so, however, as the pilot and the crew were busy sampling the delights of life outside the Iron Curtain and had not the slightest desire to leave the fleshpots of the decadent democracies for the husks of pure Marxism in Moscow. As a result all sorts of ingenious excuses were thought up by the crew for delaying the return trip, ranging from mechanical defects and bad flying weather through veiled suggestions of sabotage by the wicked Allies to plain illness of one of the crew. This pleasant game was put to an end by a stern signal from Moscow- ordering them to leave the next day or be shot when they did return; but they had had their fun.
In the meanwhile an interesting situation had developed in the Rue du General Appert. One evening, on one of my routine calls to the Mission, I was amazed to see Rado sitting in the waiting room. My surprise was nothing to Rado's. I knew that he had left Switzerland en route for Paris. He, on the other hand, had thought I was still incarcerated in a Swiss prison. Despite this, our training held and, as good secret agents, we neither of us showed any signs of recognition there. Only later when we were both summoned into the presence of Novikov did we speak to each other. Novikov said that no good purpose would be served by discussing then and there the whys and wherefores of the breakup of the Swiss organisation. He added that we were both going to Moscow, where the matter could be thrashed out in detail and at leisure, and that we were both to travel by the same plane. He also suggested that as there would be other passengers it would be better, from a security point of view, if we travelled as strangers.